Over the last couple of decades, the number of computers connected to data networks and the number of software products installed on any one computer system have increased significantly. At the same time, the number of providers for software products installed on a single computer has also increased. In particular, modern computer systems run a plurality of applications provided by a plurality of software vendors, which are usually installed after the purchase of the computer system by the user. Typically, a licensing contract between a user of a software product and the vendor of the software product must be agreed before installing the software. Such licensing agreements are typically specific to the software product licensed.
Managing licenses for software products is not only a problem for the user of a particular computer system but also for the vendor of the software product. Especially small to medium sized software vendors are faced with a significant challenge when they try to market and sell their software products over the Internet in an international environment. While providing the software itself over the Internet has become easy and widespread, providing license agreements that are in compliance with local laws and regulations remains difficult and often gives rise to legal uncertainty. In addition, charging the users for the use of a software product in a different country may also be cumbersome and unreliable.
Thus, especially small and medium sized software vendors often do not offer their software products in many countries or provide it with license agreements that are not in compliance with local laws and regulations. In either case, a loss of potential revenue and a potential for substantial damages arising from invalid license agreements are the consequence. However, obtaining specialized legal advice for all relevant countries often imposes high legal costs and effort that outweigh the potential benefits for small and medium sized software vendors. In consequence, competition between software vendors is biased towards larger corporations, which is undesirable.
So far, licensing systems have emphasized on enforcing license agreements. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,937,863 discloses a software licensing management system, in which usage of license software may be monitored in a computer system to determine if a use is within the scope of a license. More particularly, the system maintains a database of licenses for a software product, and stores a unit value indicating the number of licensed units for each product. This system is particularly useful for operators of medium to large data networks, where licenses can be centrally maintained at a license server. However, this system is unsuitable for small to medium sized software vendors providing only one or a few software products to individual users.
The present invention aims to address one or several of the above-mentioned problems. For this purpose, different methods, components and systems for licensing software products are disclosed herein.